The Whole Stupid Way We Are by N. Griffin

What happens when everything you’ve got to give isn’t enough to save someone you love? This transformative portrayal of “injustice, frustration, and rage is wrenching and difficult to forget” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

It’s Maine. It’s winter. And it’s FREEZING STINKIN’ COLD! Dinah is wildly worried about her best friend, Skint. He won’t wear a coat. Refuses to wear a coat. It’s twelve degrees out, and he won’t wear a coat. So Dinah’s going to figure out how to help. That’s what Dinah does—she helps. But she’s too busy trying to help to notice that sometimes, she’s doing more harm than good. Seeing the trees instead of the forest? That’s Dinah.

And Skint isn’t going to be the one to tell her. He’s a helper guy too. He’s worried about a little boy whose dad won’t let him visit his mom. He’s worried about an elderly couple in a too-cold house down the road.

But the wedge between what drives Dinah and what concerns Skint is wide enough for a big old slab of ice. Because Skint’s own father is in trouble. Because Skint’s mother refuses to ask for help even though she’s at her breaking point. And because Dinah might just decide to…help. She thinks she’s cracking through a sheet of ice, but what’s actually there is an entire iceberg.

Unrated Critic Reviews for The Whole Stupid Way We Are

Kirkus Reviews

The narrative is written in third person and told with a degree of distance from each point-of-view character (mostly Dinah, but occasionally Skint and twice Dinah's baby brother, Beagie), and it is initially difficult to discern how much to take at face value.

Publishers Weekly

When readers meet 14-year-old Dinah, sheâs plotting to get her best friend Skint out of detention, which is Dinah all over: sheâs a loving worrier, loyal even to the people and things sheâs ambivalent about, like the Girlsâ Friendly Society, a service group whose members have dwindled to ...